for what it does and what it's intended to be, that price and specs are just fine.

I expect 60% of the price difference is the RAM. I'd pay a little more for a full 1Ghz CPU though. VIA C7 seems like a winner to me.

What computer?

@MagnoliaBoy: I'm no benchmark expert, but I'm pretty confident that a 900MHz Celeron M will give a C7 at 1GHz a nasty wedgie.

This seems like a toss-up.
The 4GB machine pretty much achieves its aim as an ultra-portable, and the specs are decent enough. Decent enough for most of the jobs a "normal" user would do on the go.
The 8GB machine could probably fill those odd spots where you don't want to lug around a machine twice as big, but you'd like to have something more powerful than a smartphone. I honestly don't know whether I'd pay a $100 premium on those specs, or upgrade the 4GB for half the price myself.

With USB ports and a card reader, how important is twice the SSD? For that matter, how much faster will the machine run with twice the RAM?
As long as you don't put MS Windows anywhere close to this machine, half a Gigabyte of memory should be fine, shouldn't it?

this annoys me because after this photo there are not many comparison shots of the Asus eee pc if anybody sees any good one please put it in the comment because i might buy one

Anyone who would like to give ME one this year is heartily encouraged.

I'd have bought the 4gb in a heartbeat if the screen had more pixels. I'd probably go for 8 over 4 if the difference is only $100. If you're not in a hurry, wait for lightly-used 4s to show up on ebay when the 8s come out.

Does anyone besides me think you need a bare minimum of 800x600 (1024x768 preferred) for this thing to be useful? Otherwise, I've pretty much fallen in love with it.

Uh these laptops are just getting outrageous in price. seriously.

You can buy a normal laptop for $500 and have like 80gb of hard drive space and with Windows and a bigger better screen...

I like it how this asus was suppose to be $200 and now it's 400 and 500. and OLPC was suppose to be $100 and now it's $400.

THESE CAN'T BE SUCESSFULL AND IF THEY ARE.. WELL PEOPLE ARE STUPIDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD..

half a Gigabyte of memory should be fine, shouldn't it?

Not with the default worksuite. OpenOffice.Org is nice, free software, and the level of interoperability is amazing, but it's a processor and memory hog. You can easily get over 300-400 megabytes used just with a single large sheet. If you add in music or much multitasking, you can pretty easily exceed a half gigabyte with just a damn small linux system, nevermind a modified Xandros.

I don't think it'd be worth a hundred bucks for 4 gigabytes of flash hard drive and half a gigabyte of RAM -- you can come up with this sorta stuff in the ~50 USD range if you shop around right now and don't mind using up the SD slot -- but a lot of people can't or won't shop around and upgrade themselves. See Dell's relative economic success.

Of course, the 500 USD price points put you well inside the price range of a full size and more powerful laptop. It's still a good deal compared to the subnotebook/ultraportable market, but it'll be priced out of the basic laptop market.

Coder4life, there's a $300 US EEE PC available soon(tm) without the webcam, some of the RAM, and some of the hard drive space. For the low-price end, that's far from horrible.

These don't compare to normal laptops, but they're not normal laptops. They're subcompacts; 2 pounds and 9 inches by 6.5 inches. Most of these machines tend to rank in the ~1200 USD range for the sort of capabilities you're talking about, if not much higher.

I'd personally prefer performance, but ultracompacts are still a fairly well-selling marketplace; enough so to suggest a lot of people value mobility.

@Coder4Life: The thing is, they're not just laptops. They're really, really small laptops, as in more than half to nearly a quarter the weight of what you'd otherwise be carrying around. Comparing the two in terms of price and power without considering size and portability is very much like saying that I could carry a desktop with a little screen and keyboard strapped to it for less money and more power.

@takemetoyourtoaster:
I took this one a while back. It's horribly dark, but the screens should give you a rough idea. Acer 15.4 inch, Eee 7 inch, DS Lite, and a cell phone

[picasaweb.google.com]

I agree that the higher price point invites more comparison to traditional laptops, but I think those who suggest that those $500 Windows machines are in the same class are missing the point. Everything else even close to this price range that runs Windows is either old or refurb, and weighs at least 3.5 lbs. Sure, there's greater functionality and that may be a tradeoff that people are willing to make for carrying double the weight, but those who value ultra portability at a low price will not find anything even close.

I'm really encouraged to see how well this machine is doing. This generation isn't something that appeals to me, but it proves the concept of an ultralight non-Windows machine and I think that a lot of manufacturers are going to take notice. I think by this time next year there are going to be a lot more devices with similar specs available.

@takemetoyourtoaster:
And here's the same thing with the brightness jacked up in Photoshop so you can see what the machine sorta looks like:
[picasaweb.google.com]

@gattsuru: Open Office is nice except for the lack of compatibility I just ran into when porting Excel documents from around the lab. It's decent if used by itself, though.

And yes, it'll eat memory like there's no tomorrow. If you create large documents. Which should probably not be a top priority with the eeePc.

Conceding the fact that most "normal" users will eventually (within a few months) do exactly that with their new ultra-portable machine, maybe upping the RAM is justified. But not at that increase in price.

I'd wait until late Q1 or early Q2 in 2008 before shopping for one of these, simply because of the price drop after the holidays. By the time the Cebit rolls around, there should be some alternatives for this on the horizon that should push down the price even further in Q3.

I don't know why people don't focus on the kid's first PC aspect of this?

I bought it BECAUSE it's linux. So, the kids won't be able to surf to the virii infested sites because they won't be compatible, and they probably host inappropriate content anyway.

It's small and light. Watching a 8 yr old on a 15", 7 lb laptop, is a joke and torture on the kid.

Kids don't care about Word compat. they are flexible on the tools as long as the homework gets done.

takemetoyourtoaster... Bet you don't get many replys to your Craigslist ads...

I suspect most user would rather the extra cost went to screen real estate or RAM.

I love my 3 Lb. Vaio TR3 and it has been fantastic for extended use at home and abroad, but I cannot imagine being productive on a keyboard that is more than 1 inch narrower (and I have small fingers) or a screen that is 5 inches smaller on the diagonal. When those are addressed I will definitely consider a flash-based machine.

Watching at the picture one has to wonder when will the battle between the "mac girl of the month" and the "asus girl of the month" actually begin (hint hint: right about .... now! wink, wink).

@strider_mt2k: I've got one with your name on it right heeya! I'll need your credit card number, mother's maiden name, and your social security number in order to FedEx it to you. ;)

Coderforlife:

You've been brainwashed by Microsoft into believing that you need all that power, simply because Windows Vista does. MS loves to up the ante every year with the excuse that they're pushing technology forward at an greater than natural pace.

In reality, surfing and e-mail reading don't need all that power.

The only people bashing the Eee are those who have never used, or more likely even seen, one.

Everyone who has one is a very satisfied customer.

Seriously, has anyone read a review by an Eee owner wherein they said "this sucks; I hate it; why or why was I so dumb as to have bought this instead of a 'real laptop'"? No, you haven't, and you won't. On the contrary, everyone seems to be delighted with theirs -- myself included.

So, is EVERY person who bought an Eee stupid?

Okay...keep telling yourself that.

HVEDHRUNG

Open Office is nice except for the lack of compatibility I just ran into when porting Excel documents from around the lab. It's decent if used by itself, though.

I've run into that issue myself. It's pretty easy to get around if it's just the formulas : copy the entire spreadsheet to the clipboard, close the first document, open a new spreadsheet, and copy everything in. I'm not sure why this issue hasn't been fixed yet, but it's easy enough to work around.

Darex

You've been brainwashed by Microsoft into believing that you need all that power, simply because Windows Vista does. MS loves to up the ante every year with the excuse that they're pushing technology forward at an greater than natural pace.

It's not teh eVIL! Microsoft. Nor is it just teh evil Mac, which just released an operating system taking up 9 gigabytes of storage, requiring a gigahertz processor, and half a gigabyte of RAM. Nor is it the fault of those bastards at RedHat, where installs are optimized for Pentium 4 or better processors, and where installations tend to take gigabytes of hard drive space.

It's that people tend to find applications to use as many capabilities as possible. I've got a Damn Small Linux install or two floating around, but it won't save me much space compared to a couple basic games and some movies.

I dont think the 8gb is worth that price without a 10 inch screen.

With a 10 inch screen, yes its worth it for sure, without a doubt.. But i dont think the spec increase is good enough over the 4gb version to warrant a purchase.

The price point puts it in competition with the low end dell laptop, and if ultra mobility is what you want the 4gb offers it all, to compete with the low end dell, it needs the 10 inch screen, so information can be viewed easier.

Its that simple.

$500?! No thanks. I picked up a brand new Vostro 1000 from Dell for $30 less. Yes it's bigger and heavier, but I can do whatever I want with my new notebook (new games being the exception to that), same would not be true of this thing. I was very interested in the EEE PC before Asus gave us the true price of these things.

RoboVamp, look at the lower tier versions, then. If you don't need the high-level stuff or the webcam, you can find a model running 300 USD.

Get an Iphone at least it makes calls and already has the built in 8gigs.

I wonder if Asus will drop the price by 30% after the holidays and then offer the early adopters a wee Eee rebate that can be spent on Asus accessories.

I just saw one of these up close & personal at a local store... it is MUCH smaller that the pictures would imply.
I'm afraid that for the same price, I can get a brand new acer (or other low-end) 15" laptop with a REAL screen and REAL keyboard and REAL functionality (once you ditch windoze for Linux).
Its too big for a PDA and too small for a laptop.
I'll admit it.... I just don't get it... and won't get one: I was truly shocked by it's tiny size.

ADDING RAM DOES NOT VOID THE WARRANTY EVEN THOUGH YOU BREAK THE STICKER:
[forum.eeeuser.com]

not the best link ever but if yer interested it'll gt you there.

@Ednonymous: er, I think that's the point.

She's at the beach with her Eee. Sand in the keyboard notwithstanding, how easy do you suppose it is for her to see what is on the screen, especially with polarizing sun glasses gazing at the LCD?